The Piano Lesson (Movie)

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    Golden Globes Snubs and Surprises: Jon M. Chu, Danielle Deadwyler, ‘The Substance’ and More

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    Female directors were well-represented, while “Dune: Part Two” and “Sing Sing” didn’t do as well as expected.The 82nd Golden Globes nominations were announced Monday morning and the unconventional musical “Emilia Pérez” had plenty to sing about: The Netflix film topped all movies with 10 nominations, followed by “The Brutalist” and “Conclave.” Here are some of the most notable takeaways from this year’s field.Ryan Reynolds rebuffedRyan Reynolds wasn’t nominated for “Deadpool & Wolverine.”20th Century Studios/MarvelBefore a series of recent scandals prompted the Golden Globes to diversify its voting membership, you could count on this show to favor celebrity over critical consensus: Every year, the list of nominees included A-list megastars who were recognized even when their projects were not up to par. The old Globes voters, for instance, would have been eager to nominate the “Deadpool & Wolverine” star Ryan Reynolds for best actor in a comedy or musical, if only to lure Reynolds and his wife, Blake Lively, to their red carpet. The new Globes voters proved more resistant to his charms, though they did find room for the Marvel blockbuster in their dubious box-office achievement category, added last year.A ‘Sing Sing’ setbackClarence Maclin, left, and Colman Domingo in “Sing Sing.”A24Just last week, the A24 prison drama “Sing Sing” had a strong night at the Gothams, picking up wins for lead performance (Colman Domingo) and supporting performance (Clarence Maclin). The Globes proved less enamored: Only Domingo scored a nomination, and both Maclin and the film were snubbed. After an acclaimed but quiet run in theaters earlier this summer, the “Sing Sing” awards-season relaunch just took its first notable hit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Watch the Stirring Climax of ‘The Piano Lesson’

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      The director Malcolm Washington narrates a sequence from the film featuring Danielle Deadwyler.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.This article contains spoilers for “The Piano Lesson.”In the August Wilson play “The Piano Lesson,” its characters must wrestle, metaphorically, with a ghost from their past. In the film adaptation, directed by Malcolm Washington, that confrontation becomes more literal.In this scene, the climax, Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) takes a seat at the piano that she has been avoiding playing for the entire film, a piano that has deep historical meaning in her family. She plays it in an effort to conjure up her ancestors and exorcise the ghost that her brother, Boy Willie (John David Washington), is fighting upstairs.“We have all of our themes converge here,” the director Malcolm Washington said in his narration of the sequence, “the idea of shadow and light, of truth and secrets, and confronting the deepest parts of ourself to get through and transcend.”Washington said that he had “wanted to tell a story of Black spiritual practice in America.” He used iconography from Black Southern Christian tradition and West African spiritual tradition: “The idea that you can call on your ancestors,” he said, “and that there’s a boundaryless relationship between the living and the dead.”Read the “Piano Lesson” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      Gotham Awards Go to ‘A Different Man’ and ‘Sing Sing’

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      The kickoff to awards season has a mixed record but can help lift small films like the two surprise winners.“A Different Man,” a dark indie comedy starring Sebastian Stan, was the surprise best-feature winner at the 34th annual Gotham Awards, which took place Monday night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the film stars Stan as an actor with neurofibromatosis who undergoes an experimental surgery to remove tumors from his face, giving him a more conventional appearance. That makeover puts him in danger of losing a leading role to a local bon vivant (Adam Pearson) who also has neurofibromatosis but owns his appearance without shame.Though “A Different Man” is distributed by the hot studio A24, it was considered the lowest-profile contender in its category. Most pundits expected the Palme d’Or winner “Anora” to cruise to victory here and even Schimberg was caught off-guard by the win. “I think I’m not the only person in the room who’s totally stunned by this,” the director said onstage, admitting he had not prepared a speech in advance, fearing it would be “hubris” to do so.In a very fluid Oscar season, the Gotham win could raise the chances of Stan, who also stars in the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” and Pearson, a dark-horse supporting-actor candidate. Though the Gothams’ effectiveness as an Oscar bellwether can fluctuate, three of the four most recent films to triumph there — “Past Lives,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Nomadland” — also went on to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars.The Gothams are most valuable when it comes to helping smaller films like “A Different Man” that rely on an awards-season run to stay in the conversation. Though the ceremony recently lifted its $35 million budget cap for eligible contenders, its nominating juries, which are mostly made up of a handful of film journalists, still tend to favor movies that were made on a shoestring.That includes “Sing Sing,” a prison drama that won the night’s lead and supporting-performance honors for Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin. (The Gothams are gender-neutral.) “Let’s keep doing work that really matters, that makes a difference,” Domingo, who starred in “The Color Purple” and “Rustin” last year, told the audience. “That’s what we can do right now. That can be a light in the darkness.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Danielle Deadwyler Goes Deep in “The Piano Lesson”

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      On a recent Sunday morning in West Hollywood, the actress Danielle Deadwyler wore all white, clad in a pristine Tory Burch dress.“You know what white represents?” she said. “Spiritually, it’s rebirth: You get baptized, you put on a white robe, and you allow yourself to be witnessed in a certain way and to be changed. I think I’m in the midst of all of that.”Did she have a sense of where that change would take her?“Hell no,” Deadwyler said. “But I’m open.”Certainly, she appears headed in the right direction. After supporting roles in “The Harder They Fall” and “Station Eleven” established her as an actress to watch, Deadwyler’s career breakthrough came two years ago with the film “Till,” about the 1955 Mississippi murder that helped catalyze the civil-rights movement. For her deeply felt performance as Mamie Till, whose 14-year-old son Emmett was slain by white supremacists, Deadwyler won leading honors from the NAACP Awards, Gotham Awards and National Board of Review.She’s every bit as powerful in Netflix’s “The Piano Lesson,” which premiered on the streamer last week and is once again earning the 42-year-old actress awards buzz. Based on the play by August Wilson, “The Piano Lesson” casts Deadwyler as Berniece, a widowed mother at odds with her brother, Boy Willie (John David Washington), in post-Depression-era Pittsburgh. Both siblings must contend with generational trauma that’s wrapped up in the fate of their family piano: Though Boy Willie wants to sell it to buy land, Berniece insists the piano should stay put, since it serves as a totemic reminder of what their enslaved ancestors have been through.Danielle Deadwyler stars as Berniece in “The Piano Lesson,” an adaptation of August Wilson’s play.As Berniece deals with Boy Willie, rebuffs the preacher Avery (Corey Hawkins), who seeks to court her, and shares a surprising, erotically charged moment with her brother’s friend Lymon (Ray Fisher), Deadwyler feels compellingly real in the role. “I’ve never felt like I was watching Danielle in this, I never thought of her outside the role,” said Denzel Washington, who produced the film. Unlike other actors who are determined to show their work, Deadwyler simply embodies the character, Washington said: “If you can dissect it, then they’re probably not very good, right? It’s what you get from it that’s proof of what they’re doing — it’s what you feel.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Piano Lesson’ Review: Ghosts in the Instrument

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      This film adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play falters in some specifics, but is still vital viewing.Riddle me this: When is a piano not merely a piano? Answer: In “The Piano Lesson,” where one piano contains a whole world.A whole family’s world, anyhow. The piano in question is an old upright, carved all over with the faces and figures of departed ancestors and stolen from the white Mississippi man who once enslaved members of this family. For Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler), that means it’s sacred, a link to past trauma and resilience that must be preserved.For her brother, Boy Willie (John David Washington), the piano represents something else: money. More precisely, when he looks at the piano he sees the cash he needs to buy a piece of land back home in Mississippi and set up his own farm. That’s why he’s traveled up here to Pittsburgh, where Berniece lives with her daughter, Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith), and an uncle, Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson). Ostensibly Boy Willie has come to sell watermelons to locals with his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher). But it’s the piano he’s after.To others, the piano means other things. For Avery (Corey Hawkins), an elevator operator who dreams of starting a church and marrying Berniece, the piano offers the possibility of a stable future. But for Doaker Charles’s brother Wining Boy (Michael Potts), the instrument is a reminder of the exhilarating, unrelenting life he once lived on the road as a successful pianist, before he became washed up and broke.In 1990, “The Piano Lesson” won the eminent playwright August Wilson his second of two Pulitzers for drama. It’s part of his Pittsburgh Cycle (sometimes called his Century Cycle), a set of 10 decade-spanning plays about Black American life, all set in Pittsburgh. It’s been staged repeatedly since then; the 2022 Broadway revival starred Washington, Jackson and Fisher in the same roles they play in this film.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Most Anticipated New Movie Releases in Winter 2024

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      From life stories (“A Complete Unknown,” “The Fire Inside”) to animated tales (“Moana 2,” “Mufasa”), these are the films we can’t wait to see this season.November‘EMILIA PÉREZ’ Four actresses — Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz — shared a prize at Cannes for their performances in this unlikeliest of musicals, about the friendship between a Mexican cartel kingpin (Gascón) and a lawyer (Saldaña) hired to arrange the kingpin’s gender transition. Jacques Audiard directed. (Nov. 13; Netflix)‘HOT FROSTY’ Remember “Mannequin”? This sounds kind of like that, except instead of a mannequin coming to life, it’s a snowman (Dustin Milligan), and instead of Andrew McCarthy, it has Lacey Chabert. (Nov. 13; Netflix)‘ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT’ This film from Payal Kapadia was the first Indian feature to compete at Cannes in 30 years; it won the Grand Jury Prize, effectively second place. It concerns two women (Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha) in Mumbai. One has a husband living abroad; the other is navigating an interfaith relationship that she strives to keep quiet. (Nov. 15; in theaters)Karla Sofía Gascón, left, is the title drug kingpin and Zoe Saldaña is the lawyer helping arrange her client’s gender transition.Netflix‘ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE’ The rocket man himself recalls how he soared to stardom in this documentary, shot during preparations for his 2022 appearances at Dodger Stadium, purportedly his final North American concerts. (Nov. 15 in theaters, Dec. 13 on Disney+)‘GHOST CAT ANZU’ Anzu is a big, fluffy, animated talking cat whose antics give Garfield a run for his money in this anime favorite from the festival circuit. (Nov. 15; in theaters)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oscar Contenders Emerge After Film Festival Season

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      After film festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto, a slate of contenders has emerged. Still, there are few front-runners.Fall foliage may still be weeks away, but the tea leaves of Oscar season are ready to be read.Now that festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto have concluded and all but a handful of this year’s contenders have had their first public peek-out, the story is beginning to come into focus. And unlike the last two years, which were dominated by the season-long sweepers “Oppenheimer” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” this race seems much more wide open.Still, two movies already look like significant contenders across the board. One is “Conclave,” a handsomely mounted thriller about sneaky cardinals plotting to pick a new pope. It premiered at Telluride and stars Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci. Some of my fellow journalists sniffed that “Conclave” was just a potboiler with prestige trappings, but I think that’s exactly what will appeal to Oscar voters, who love to reward a rip-roaring yarn as long as it’s well-made with a soupçon of social-issue relevance. Directed by Edward Berger, whose “All Quiet on the Western Front” won four Academy Awards, “Conclave” could be a big hit with audiences, too.If Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” felt like the biggest movie of Venice, that’s in part because of its mammoth 215-minute run time, which comes complete with a 15-minute intermission. There’s no denying the outsize ambition of this film, which was shot on the old-fashioned VistaVision format and chronicles the epic tribulations of a Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) as he emigrates to America after World War II. Expect plenty of awards recognition for Corbet and supporting performers Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, as well as a surefire Oscar nomination for Brody, who somehow still holds the record for the youngest best-actor winner after taking that Oscar at 29 for “The Pianist.”Two buzzy performances from big stars also debuted in Venice. Daniel Craig looks likely to earn his first Oscar nomination, for Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” in which he plays an American expat besotted with a young man in midcentury Mexico City. And Nicole Kidman won the best actress award at Venice for the erotic “Babygirl,” which also finds her falling for a younger man. (Perhaps age-gap romances are the new Oscar bait.)The Venice trophy will help Kidman build a case for her sixth Oscar nomination (she won for “The Hours”), though she’ll face a surplus of strong lead-actress contenders who also emerged from the fall fests: Angelina Jolie as the opera diva Maria Callas in “Maria”; the Brazilian star Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here”; Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a mouthy malcontent in Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths”; and the double act of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in Pedro Almodóvar’s empathetic “The Room Next Door,” which won the top prize in Venice, the Golden Lion.The director Jason Reitman has crafted a crowd-pleaser in “Saturday Night,” a comedy about the chaotic backstage negotiations that preceded the debut episode of “Saturday Night Live,” though its wide Oct. 11 release will have to go well if the movie hopes to sustain the momentum it earned from Telluride and Toronto. “Joker: Folie à Deux” has the opposite problem: Though this sequel to the billion-dollar hit is certain to make money when it’s released next month, it was coolly received by Venice critics and will face a much more uncertain awards future than its predecessor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 Movie Trends from the Toronto International Film Festival

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      And other cultural predictions based on movies that played at the Toronto International Film Festival, including Pedro Almodóvar’s latest.After years of pandemic delays and Hollywood strikes, the Toronto International Film Festival, which concludes on Sunday, felt particularly alive this year. Unlike recent years, there was no surefire hit like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) or “Oppenheimer” (2023) that premiered in the spring or summer, which added excitement and uncertainty going into awards season. Movies both big and small come to the Canadian city to launch Oscars campaigns, build audiences, announce major debuts and, in some cases, woo buyers that’ll release films over the coming months. But it’s also a great place to see how culture at large is shifting, at least as far as Hollywood is concerned. Here’s where we’re headed.1. We’re all in the mood for love again …Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in “We Live in Time.”Courtesy of TIFFIf the September film season (which also includes major festivals in Venice, Italy, Telluride, Colo., and the upcoming one in New York), has shown something, it’s that many writers and directors are feeling romantic. There’s Sean Baker’s “Anora,” about a sex worker who marries the son of an oligarch, and William Bridges’s “All of You,” which depicts Brett Goldstein (of “Ted Lasso” acclaim) and Imogen Poots as best friends who can’t decide whether to date. Chemistry always wins out, of course, and it’s hard to deny the frisson between Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in John Crowley’s “We Live in Time,” an indie crowd-pleaser that’s ideal for crying your way through on a rainy Sunday afternoon.2. … Or maybe it’s just lust.Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in “Babygirl.”Courtesy of TIFFDaniel Craig and Drew Starkey in “Queer.”Yannis DrakoulidisToronto was brimming with romantic tragedies, not comedies; perhaps because of ongoing conversations about non-monogamy and open relationships, there were a lot of affairs onscreen, too. The most successful scripts focused on intense, almost unnamable desire, often between two people who know it can’t last: In Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl,” Nicole Kidman plays a powerful executive who gets into a complicated psychosexual mess with her intern; in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” based on the William S. Burroughs novel (published in 1985), Daniel Craig’s heroin-addled character deals with the hot-and-cold affections of a paramour while traveling through midcentury Mexico City and South America. Both films sizzle, and it’s no coincidence that the actors playing the young objects of these leads’ affections — Harris Dickinson and Drew Starkey, respectively — are proving themselves to be rising talents.3. Another major star? Danielle Deadwyler.Danielle Deadwyler in “The Piano Lesson.”Courtesy of TIFFWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More